Nominal and pronominal arguments in German: a Syntax First Alignment approach
0. Introduction The canonical order of nominal arguments in German has been an issue of debate for some time. In the present paper I argue that the default order of arguments is subject>direct object>indirect object, contrary to Lenerz (1977) and Choi (1996), who claim that the indirect object canonically precedes the direct object. I will discuss the factors that play a crucial role in determining the order of these arguments, i.e. argument status, animacy and focus status. Also, I give a descriptive overview of the arrangement of pronominal arguments, highlighting the differences between them and the nominal arguments, e.g. pronominal arguments appear towards the beginning of a clause, their order is not flexible at all and they are blind to the animacy factor. Section 2 introduces the model I adopt, i.e. Syntax First Alignment, with the most important background assumptions taken from Newson (2010) and Newson and Szécsényi (2012). In the last section, I will demonstrate how the distribution of nominal and pronominal arguments in German can be accounted for within the framework of SFA, as well as the other noted differences between them.
1. Nominal and pronominal arguments in German 1.1.
Nominal arguments
German word order is more flexible than in English. In German all non-verbal elements can scramble. Thus, all six permutations of agent, theme and recipient are possible. This is demonstrated below: (1)
a … dass Hans dem Schüler das Buch geliehen hat that Hans the studentDAT the bookACC lent has ‘… that Hans lent the book to the student’ b … dass Hans das Buch dem Schüler geliehen hat c … dass das Buch Hans dem Schüler geliehen hat
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d … dass das Buch dem Schüle Hans geliehen hat e … dass dem Schüler Hans das Buch geliehen hat f … dass dem Schüler das Buch Hans geliehen hat These examples have similar meanings but of course each alternative structure denotes something slightly different. Lenerz and other scholars1 claim that the canonical word order is represented by (1a). However, it can be argued that the arrangement in (1b) is the default, based on the observation that in sentences with two animate objects, as noted by Hoberg (1981: 68), the following one can be interpreted only as a direct object, while the preceding one must be interpreted as an indirect object. Thus, the only possible interpretation for the following sentence is that it was Wolfgang who was introduced to Helga and not vice versa: (2)
Fritz Wolfgang Helga vor dann stellte then introduced FritzNOM/SUBJ WolfgangACC/DO HelgaDAT/IO prefix ‘then Fritz introduced Wolfgang to Helga’
Similarly, if there are two inanimate objects, the indirect object follows the direct object. This is illustrated in (3) (Zifonun et al., 1997:1520): (3)
Die alte Poetik ordnet das Epigramm der lyrischen Gattung zu the old poetics relates the epigramACC/DO the lyric genreDAT/IO prefix ‘Old poetics relates epigrams to the lyric genre’
The problem with Lenerz’s conclusions regarding the arrangement of objects is that he analyzes only a limited number of examples where one of the objects is animate. In most cases, the verb geben (‘give’), for instance, takes an inanimate theme and an animate recipient. From the data reviewed above, it seems reasonable to assume that it is animacy which is responsible for the IO>DO order and thus it is not necessarily the default order. Lenerz ignores the animacy factor, therefore his conclusions are highly questionable. For instance, in (1a) the IO>DO order shows the effect of the animacy constraint, which requires that animate arguments precede inanimate arguments. The animacy constraint does not play a decisive role in (2), and (3), as the objects are either both animate or inanimate.
1
See Lenerz (1977), Webelhuth (1992) and Choi (1996) for details.
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Moreover, Lenerz does not take into consideration the order of pronominal arguments. As illustrated below, a pronoun indirect object must follow a pronoun direct object: (4)
ihr ja wahrscheinlich gestern gegeben hat weil er es because he itACC herDAT prt probably yesterday given has ‘because he probably gave it to her yesterday’
If the basic word order were IO>DO, it would be difficult to account for why (4) is the only grammatical option. It seems there is no reason for pronominal objects to scramble yielding the DO>IO order, as none of the arguments is focussed or differs in other aspects. Besides argument structure and the animacy factor, Røreng (2011) discusses other constraints which may determine word order. They include the specificity effect, the discourse effect, the focus-background effect and constituent length. I turn to these shortly. As Lenerz (1977) points out, indefinite arguments follow definite ones, which is supported by the following examples: (5)
a Ich habe dem Chef einen Kollegen vorgestellt I have the bossDAT/IO a colleagueACC/DO introduced ‘I introduced a colleague to the boss’ b *? Ich habe einen KollegenACC/DO dem ChefDAT/IO vorgestellt
In fact, indefinite arguments, if present, must be the last non-verbal element in a clause, as illustrated in by (6), where ein Buch (‘a book’) is the indefinite noun phrase and wohl (‘probably’) is an adjunct. (6)
a weil er wohl ein Buch gelesen hat because he probably a book read has ‘because he probably read a book’ b * weiler ein Buch wohl gelesen hat
Røreng (2011), however, does not consider specificity as a separate constraint which can have an influence on the order of elements. In her corpus, there are examples which show the [−def] >[+def] order. She concludes that it is the information structure which plays a crucial role. She further argues that definite arguments often belong to the background part (‘Hintergrund’), while indefinite arguments are generally focussed (see below). The Even Yearbook 12 (2016), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 2061–490X, http://seas3.elte.hu/even, © 2016, Tamás Csontos
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As far as discourse effects are concerned, Røreng (2011) distinguishes between the categories ‘given’, ‘accessible’ and ‘new’. An argument is regarded ‘given’, if it has been mentioned previously, i.e. it must have an explicit antecedent in the discourse. Elements that are assigned the category ‘accessible’ are constituents which can be identified by the hearer although they have not been mentioned explicitly before. ‘New’ elements, on the other hand, cannot be identified by the hearer (or reader), as they do not have an antecedent in the discourse. It can be observed that given elements always precede new elements (there are no counterexamples at all), accessible elements precede new elements (with very few exceptions), and there is a strong preference for the given>accessible order. The focus-background division is also discussed by Jacobs (1988), who claims that German has a focus-background structure. Sentences can be divided into a focussed and a background part, with the focussed part following the background part. Røreng (2011) claims that the discourse effect and the focus-background dichotomy are not independent of each other. If a constituent is marked as ‘new’, while the other elements are assigned the feature ‘accessible’ or ‘given’, it will be marked as new in relation to them as well, so it must appear as a focus.2 The focussed element is the rightmost nonverbal element in a sentence, c.f. (7) (Lenerz, 1993): (7)
weil es ihm ja wahrscheinlich gestern ein Mann[focus] gab because it him prt probably yesterday a man gave ‘because probably a man gave it to him yesterday’
The agent ein Mann can be considered to be the ‘message’, introduced by the indefinite article. Therefore, the conclusion is that ein Mann[foc] is the focus, which follows the background part. In order to describe the information structure of sentences, Røreng (2011) chooses the focus-background division and ignores the discourse effects. Finally, longer (heavy) constituents tend to follow shorter ones in German.3 According to Røreng (2011), constituent length may have an impact on the order of the direct and indirect object as well; however, she does not consider this factor of crucial importance. Niv (1992) claims that it is possible to give a meaning-based account of heaviness. The intuition of ‘heaviness’ can be formalized “in terms of an aspect of the meaning of the constituents involved, namely their givenness in the discourse.” (p. 287) Items that are new 2
3
Note the difference between the element which is marked ‘new’ and the one which is marked ‘focus’. In fact, this is a cross-linguistic tendency.
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to the discourse tend to be more elaborated expressions, whereas items that are given tend to be simple. A good example can be anaphoric pronouns, which refer to given information with a single (usually monosyllabic) word, e.g. I, you, we and they. This suggests that heaviness can be related to the focusbackground dichotomy as well. All in all, Røreng considers the DO>IO as the canonical word order which can be modified by animacy and the focus factor. The latter is ranked higher than the former (Røreng, 2011, p.214): (8)
hierarchy of constraints 1. 2. 3.
constraints backgrounded part >focussed part animate > inanimate direct objectACC) > indirect objectDAT
In addition, topics can also have an impact on word order. Nagy (2013) claims that topics are assigned the discourse-oriented features [about] besides the syntactic ‘argument’ feature. It is a well-known fact that in German multiple topicalisation is not allowed: only one topic can be fronted in main clauses even if there are more topic-marked elements, which is due to the fact that German is a V2 language. The first topic must be followed by the inflected verb: (9)
a Den Mann[about] hat Hans[about] gestern angerufen the manACC has Hans yesterday called ‘Hans called the man yesterday’ b
Before dealing with the constraints which play a determining role in topicalisation, we have to distinguish between ‘strong’ topics and ‘weak’ topics. Nagy (2013) states that strong topics take the sentence-initial position and they are associated with the [contrast] feature (besides the [about] feature), which is responsible for the position of strong topics: (10) a Den Mann[about][contrast] hat Hans gestern angerufen the manACC has Hans yesterday called (und nicht die Frau) and not the woman ‘It was the man whom Hans called yesterday, and not the woman’ b * Hans hat den Mann[about][contrast] gestern angerufen (und nicht die Frau) The Even Yearbook 12 (2016), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 2061–490X, http://seas3.elte.hu/even, © 2016, Tamás Csontos
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c * Hans hat gestern den Mann[about][contrast] angerufen (und nicht die Frau) Weak topics, lacking the [contrast] feature, behave differently as they do not necessarily take the first position in a clause (compare dem Hans in (11a)). According to Nagy (2013), although weak topics do not determine which element will be the first argument, they do have an effect on the ordering of arguments in the ‘middle field’4. This is demonstrated in the examples below. In all cases, the answer is preceded by the question Wie steht’s mit dem Hans? ‘What about Hans?’ (Nagy, 2013): (11) a Ich habe dem Hans[about] gestern das Buch geliehen I have the HansDAT yesterday the book lent ‘I lent Hans the book yesterday’. b *Ich habe gestern dem Hans[about] das Buch geliehen c Das Buch habe ich dem Hans[about] gestern geliehen d *Das Buch habe dem Hans[about] ich gestern geliehen However, not only topics can be used contrastively, but also foci. In this case, the argument is associated with the features [new] and [contrast]. As the following example of a corrective situation shows, contrastive foci also trigger fronting Hagen (2005): (12) A: Kerry hat die Wahl gewonnen. Kerry has the election won ‘Kerry won the election’ B: Nein, Bush[new][contrast] hat die Wahl gewonnen no Bush has the election won ‘No, it was Bush who won the election.’ To sum, the default word order in German is subject>direct object>indirect object. However, it can be changed by the factors animacy, focus, topic and contrast.
4
The middle field is the part of the clause in between the inflected verb and the clause-final verb position in main clauses and between the complementizer and the verb-final position in embedded sentences.
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1.2.
Pronominal arguments
This section focuses the distribution of weak pronominal arguments in German. However, it is important to separate them from strong pronouns. Weak pronouns are unstressed, and according to Cardinaletti and Starke (1996), they can refer to any entity, human and non-human. Secondly, weak pronouns must have an antecedent in the discourse. In other words, they cannot introduce a new discourse referent. In addition, they are not able to be coordinated, nor modified, as illustrated by (13) and (14) respectively (Cardinaletti and Starke (1996)): (13) *Es und diese Zeitungen hat er gekauft it and this newspaper has he bought ‘He bought it and this newspaper’ (14) *Sogar es ist auf den Boden gefallen. even it is on the floor fallen ‘Even it fell on the floor’ Strong pronouns, on the other hand, do not show these properties and their distribution can be slightly different. As (15), repeated from the previous section, demonstrates, the order of weak pronominal arguments is less flexible than that of nominal ones. The pronominal subject must immediately precede the pronominal direct object, which must immediately precede the pronominal indirect object: er es ihr ja wahrscheinlich gestern gegeben hat (15) weil because he itACC herDAT particle probably yesterday given has ‘because he probably gave it to her yesterday’
Interestingly, the animacy factor does not have any effect on word order, as opposed to what can be observed with full nominal phrases. In (15) above, the inanimate pronoun es must precede the animate pronoun ihr. Secondly, weak pronominal arguments appear towards the left edge of sentences, which is demonstrated in (16). In main clauses they typically follow the inflected verb and they cannot be separated from it, only by a (non-pronominal) subject: (16) a Heute gibt die Frau es ihr today gives the woman itACC herDAT ‘The woman is giving it to her today’ The Even Yearbook 12 (2016), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 2061–490X, http://seas3.elte.hu/even, © 2016, Tamás Csontos
Nominal and pronominal argument in German 18
b * Die Frau gibt heute es ihr. c * Heute gebe das Geld ich ihr today give the money INOM herDAT ‘I am going the money to her today’ Weak pronouns appear immediately to the right of either the finite verb (V1 or V2) or the sentence-initial complementizer. Another consequence of this is that pronominal objects precede nominal objects irrespective of animacy or thematic role (case): (17) a Ich stellte ihn dem Kind vor I introduced himACC the childDAT prefix ‘I introduced him to the child’ a’ * Ich stellte dem Kind ihn b Ich stellte ihm das Kind vor I introduced himDAT the childACC prefix ‘I introduced the child to him’ b’ * Ich stellte das Kind ihm c Ich gab es dem Kind I gave itACC the childDAT ‘I gave it to the child’ c’ * Ich gab dem Kind es The facts that pronominal arguments are blind to the animacy factor and that they precede other nominal arguments will be accounted for in section 3 after SFA has been introduced.
2. The architecture of Syntax First Alignment Syntax First Alignment is based on Alignment Syntax (Newson 2004), which is a restricted Optimality Theoretic grammar. In SFA, the general structure generator (GEN) generates a finite set of output candidates, i.e. the candidate set, for a given input. The input carries all the information necessary for the interpretation of expressions, so it is regarded as the interface with the semantic component of the grammar. The candidates are evaluated by a set of constraints. Vocabulary insertion takes place only after the optimal candidate is found. The architecture of SFA is shown in (18):
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(18) input → GEN → candidate → EVAL → set
optimal vocabulary → candidate insertion
↓ semantic interpretation
According to Newson and Szécsényi (2012), input elements are taken from a universal stock of basic units, which are referred to as Conceptual Units (CUs). These come in two types: a syntactically homogenous set of roots and a heterogeneous set of functional units (FCUs), such as tense and aspect. Roots represent descriptive semantic content; while, functional units carry functional content. Root CUs (RCUs) make up what are traditionally called nouns, adjectives and verbs. A root is usually represented with the symbol ‘√’ and capital letters indicating its content, e.g. √TABLE. FCUs on the other hand are limited in number and are represented between square brackets, e.g. [past]. Newson and Szécsényi (2012) add that “dependency relationships are also stated in the input, for example relating a particular tense to a particular root”. GEN imposes linear orderings on the input elements, as it is assumed in SFA that syntactic expressions have no constituent structure. Also, GEN is not allowed to add any element which is not present in the input to a candidate. Consequently, the candidate set will always be finite. On the other hand, there may be input elements which are absent from the output. However, this would violate the relevant faithfulness constraint. The notion of a domain plays an important role in the present framework. Domains are not structural units and differ from phrases in a number of respects. Furthermore, they are not necessarily continuous strings, as they may be interspersed by members of other domains. The notion of domains is useful if we wish to determine the position of an element with respect to more than one element. Domains, however, are not made up of just any kinds of elements. Newson (2010) defines domains as “sets of input elements which share a given property” (p.32). For example, the predicate domain (Dpred) is made up of a predicate root and all the arguments and adjuncts associated with it. On the other hand, the argument domain (DA), as proposed by Newson (2013), consists of arguments which are associated with a given predicate. There are only two types of constraints distinguished in SFA: faithfulness and alignment constraints. Faithfulness constraints are responsible for the identity between the input and the output. They are violated if an element which is part of the input is absent from the output. Generally, faithfulness constraints are ranked high; otherwise, a lot of input elements would end up The Even Yearbook 12 (2016), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 2061–490X, http://seas3.elte.hu/even, © 2016, Tamás Csontos
Nominal and pronominal argument in German 20
deleted from the output, which would be problematic for the hearer to recover the intended meaning. The alignment constraints determine the position of target elements with respect to hosts, which can be single elements or domains – see (19) and (20), respectively. There are three basic relationships: precedence, subsequence and adjacency: (19) a xPy ‘x precedes y’ b xFy ‘x follows y’ c xAy ‘x is adjacent to y’
violated by y…x order violated by x…y order violated by every CU which intercedes between x and y
When the host is a domain, the constraints can be defined as below, following Newson and Szécsényi (2012): (20) a xPDy ‘violated by every member of the domain which precedes x’ b xFDy ‘violated by every member of the domain which follows x’ c xADy ‘violated by every member of the domain which is not adjacent to x’ (20a), for instance, forces x to be at the front of the domain preceding all domain members. The constraint in (20c) is best satisfied with the target surrounded by the domain members. It is then adjacent to two of the members, one on either side, which is the maximum adjacency possible. As far as late lexical insertion is concerned, there are four principles which determine what can spell out a given string of conceptual units if there is no exact match between that string and the vocabulary item. First, it is a basic condition that only contiguous sequences can be spelled out by a single vocabulary item. In addition, it is also assumed that vocabulary insertion is ‘root centric’, which means that the process starts with the root CUs, spelling these out with those contiguous FCUs that the vocabulary entry allows for. Remaining FCUs are spelled out separately. The third principle is the principle of Minimal Vocabulary Access. This says that if you can spell out a sequence of features with one vocabulary item instead of two, do it with one. The last principle is called the Superset Principle, which says the best fitting match for a sequence of features is that vocabulary item associated with all the features in that sequence, though it may also be associated with features not present in that sequence. For example, let us assume that the sequence which has to be spelled out is <x,y,z> and the candidates that can possibly The Even Yearbook 12 (2016), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 2061–490X, http://seas3.elte.hu/even, © 2016, Tamás Csontos
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spell it out are <X,Y>, <X,Y,Z,W> <X,Y,W>. According to the Superset Principle, the best fitting match will be <X,Y,Z,W> (although it is associated with an extra <W> feature), because it contains all the features of the sequence <X,Y,Z> and there is no other item associated with a smaller superset of the target sequence. 2.1.
The argument domain
SFA does not operate with notions like subjects, objects, etc, nor with thetaroles, e.g. agent, theme, patient, etc. Instead, I will use the terms argument 1, 2 and 3. It is assumed that complex events comprise sub-events arranged in a sequence: the first event precedes the second one, which in turn precedes the third one. The arguments related to the first (causing) sub-event will be referred to as argument 1, and that to the next as argument 2. It is assumed that there is an argument CU (a relator) - [arg1], [arg2] or [arg3] - which associates a nominal root with a particular (verbal) predicate. I will refer to the domain that consists of the argument features that are associated with a single predicate as the argument domain (DA). We want the first argument to precede the second argument and the second argument to precede the third argument. This can be achieved by the following constraints: (21) [arg1]PDA > [arg2]PDA > [arg3]PDA The first constraint, for example, is violated by every member of the argument domain which precedes [arg1]. The nominal root which the argument feature is typically associated with in the input must be adjacent to this argument feature and precedes it. However, the argument feature and the associated nominal root can be separated and thus be lexicalized by two different vocabulary items. According to Nagy (2013), this is what happens in outputs that involve left dislocation. She claims that the resumptive pronoun in these constructions spells out an argument CU, while the nominal root which is associated with it will be syntactically separated. Thus, in the following sentence, for instance, him spells out [arg2], which lacks root content, while Sam lexicalizes the nominal root which is associated with it. (22) √SAM √WOMEN[arg1] √LOVE [arg2] Sam women love him I assume that personal pronouns behave in the same way, see Csontos (2014). That is, they can be seen as the realization of the [arg] CUs themselves. Note that they must have an antecedent as well. In a similar vein, The Even Yearbook 12 (2016), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 2061–490X, http://seas3.elte.hu/even, © 2016, Tamás Csontos
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Newson (1998) claims that “the input element which gets pronounced as a pronoun is not itself a fully specified NP”. For instance, the following vocabulary entry can be proposed for him: (23) him ↔ [arg2] In the next section, we will see that the argument domain has an important role. The assumptions that have been made about pronouns will make it possible to give an alternative analysis of certain phenomena related to them.
3. Nominal and pronominal arguments in the light of Syntax First Alignment It has been argued that, from an argument point of view, we have the word order [arg1] > [arg2] > [arg3]. The constraints in (20) can account for this phenomenon. In the previous section it was observed that the [arg2] > [arg3] order can be overridden by the animacy factor, i.e. animate arguments precede inanimate arguments. This can be formulated as follows: (24) aPi (animate arguments precede inanimate arguments) Table (25c) illustrates the interaction of the relevant constraints: (25) a dass Hans[arg1] das Buch[arg2] dem Schüler[arg3] geliehen hat b dass Hans[arg1] dem Schüler[arg3] das Buch[arg2] geliehen hat c
(25a) (25b)
[arg1]PDA aPi [arg2]PDA [arg3]PDA
The third factor requires the (non-contrastive) focus to be the rightmost non-verbal element in a clause following the backgrounded part. In terms of Syntax First Alignment, this means that the focus must follow the predicate domain (Dpred), which comprises all the dependents of a predicate, and the predicate itself, as discussed above. I propose that foci are associated with the feature [new] in the input, c.f. Røreng (2011) in section 1.1. This CU is responsible for the fact that focussed elements appear towards the end of a sentence. This can be formalized as in (25): (25) [new]FDpred The Even Yearbook 12 (2016), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 2061–490X, http://seas3.elte.hu/even, © 2016, Tamás Csontos
Nominal and pronominal argument in German 23
This constraint must be ranked below the constraint which determines the position of the verb, i.e. vFDpred5; otherwise, the verb would not be the last element in an (embedded) clause. Compare (7) – repeated below as (26): es ihm ja wahrscheinlich gestern ein Mann[focus] gab (26) weil because it him particle probably yesterday a man gave ‘because probably a man gave it to him yesterday’
It can also be observed that the subject takes the penultimate position in a sentence when it is focussed. Consequently, [new]FDpred must be ranked over [arg1]PDA: (27) vFDpred > [new]FDpred> [arg1]PDA > aPi> [arg2]PDA > [arg3]PDA The following tableau illustrates the interaction of these constraints introduced above6: (28) a b c
weil es ihm ja wahrscheinlich gestern ein Mann[focus] gab weil ein Mann[focus] es ihm ja wahrscheinlich gestern gab weil es ihm ja wahrscheinlich gestern gab ein Mann[focus]
d (28a) (28b) (28c)
vFDpred [new]FDpred [arg1]PDA [arg2]PDA [arg3]PDA
It was previously demonstrated that strong topics (or contrastive topics) and contrastive foci occupy the first position in a clause. This can be achieved by proposing a constraint which requires the CU with a [contrast] feature to precede the predicate domain: (29) [contrast]PDpred
5
6
Newson (2013) gives a more detailed analysis of the order of verbs and inflectional elements in matrix and subordinate clauses. I do not include the animacy constraint here for the sake of simplicity, because in case of pronouns they do not have any effect. I am going to discuss in the next section why this is so.
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The contrastive feature cannot be interpreted independently, it must occur either alongside an [about] or a [new] feature. This also means that the input which contains a [contrast] feature but no [about] or [new] feature will be uninterpretable and thus ungrammatical. Nagy (2012) assumes the constraints in (30): (30) a b
[contrast]A[about] [contrast]A[new]
As (31), repeated from section 1, shows, strong topics precede subjects: (31) Den Mann[about][contrast] hat Hans gestern
angerufen (und nicht die Frau) the manACC has Hans yesterday called and not the woman ‘It was the man whom Hans called yesterday, and not the woman’
This means that the constraint in (29) must be ranked higher than [arg1]PDA. Secondly, weak topics, i.e. topics which are associated only with an [about] feature, tend to be the left-most elements in the middle field. The following example from the previous section illustrates this: (32) Ich habe dem Hans[about] gestern das Buch geliehen I have the HansDAT yesterday the book lent ‘I lent Hans the book yesterday.’ I assume that the constraint in (33) below is responsible for the position of weak topics: (33) [about]PDpred As weak topics do not influence the position of the subject, we have to conclude that (33) is ranked lower than [arg1]PDA. To sum, all of the constraints which determine the positions of nominal arguments in a clause are listed in (34): (34) [contrast]PDpred / [new]FDpred > [arg1]PDA > [about]PDpred > aPi > [arg2]PDA > [arg3]PDA After analysing nominal arguments, let us discuss pronominal arguments. I have already assumed above that the default word order is identical in case of nominal and pronominal arguments; however, while the order of the former The Even Yearbook 12 (2016), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 2061–490X, http://seas3.elte.hu/even, © 2016, Tamás Csontos
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can be influenced by the animacy constraint, the latter cannot be. Also, animacy has no effect on the order of a nominal and a pronominal argument, either. Other factors (such as topicalisation), on the other hand, have the same influence on nominal and pronominal arguments – see later. The difference between nominal arguments and pronominal ones is that the latter lack roots. The intuition, therefore, is that the animacy features need a root to attach to and are therefore not realized on pronouns: (35) [(in)animate]A√ Secondly, weak pronouns tend to appear at the left edge of the clause, as opposed to foci, for instance. In this respect they behave like weak topics, as they do not necessarily have to be fronted, see (36). This is not surprising given that pronouns usually represent ‘old’ information, already having an antecedent in the discourse. I assume that pronouns are – by nature – associated with the [about] feature in the input, just like weak topics and this CU is responsible for their position. (36) Der Mann hat mich[about] vorgestellt the man has me introduced ‘The man introduced me’ Pronouns can be associated with the [contrast] feature, but in this case they can rather be regarded as strong pronouns, as they are stressed. The contrastive feature also triggers fronting: (37) Mich[about][contrast] hat der Mann vorgestellt me has the man introduced ‘The man introduced me’ It can be seen that the [about] feature affects the position of pronouns as well. However, we still need to explain why (topicalized) nominal roots follow pronouns which are associated with the same [about] CU, irrespective of their argument roles (cf. (38) and (39a)) or whether they are animate or inanimate (cf. (41) and (42)), and can be preceded only by the subject: (38) a
Der Mann hat mich[about] der Frau[about] vorgestellt the womanDAT introduced. the man has me ‘The man introduced me to the woman’
b *Der Mann hat der Frau[about] mich[about] vorgestellt The Even Yearbook 12 (2016), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 2061–490X, http://seas3.elte.hu/even, © 2016, Tamás Csontos
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(39) a Der Mann hat mir[about] die Frau[about] vorgestellt the man has meDAT the womanACC introduced ‘The man introduced the woman to me’ b *Der Mann hat die Frau[about] mir[about] vorgestellt (40) a Der Mann hat es[about] der Frau[about] gegeben the man has itACC the womanDAT given ‘The man gave it to the woman’ b *Der Mann hat der Frau[about] es[about] gegeben (41) a Der Mann hat es[about] der Stadt[about] gegeben the man has itACC the cityDAT given ‘The man gave it to the city’ b *Der Mann hat der Stadt[about] es[about] gegeben This means that another constraint has to be introduced which requires nominal arguments to follow the argument domain along with their argument feature. The constraint in (42) and (43) yield the desired results. The former must outrank the latter. (42) [arg]A√n (43) √nFDA (42) guarantees that roots and their argument CUs will not be separated, while (43) ensures that all roots will be placed towards the end of the domain with respect to cases where there is no root (i.e. a pronoun). This constraint must be ranked below [arg1]PDA, as both pronominal and nominal subjects can precede pronominal objects. On the other hand, the ranking of (43) cannot be determined with respect to [about]PDpred, because we get the same results irrespective of which one outranks the other. We can add the constraint in (43) to the ones introduced above: (44) [contrast]PDpred / [new]FDpred > [arg1]PDA> [arg]A√n > √nFDA > [about]PDpred > [(in)animate]A√ > aPi > [arg2]PDA > [arg3]PDA The tableaux below demonstrate the interaction of these constraints, which predict the correct order, compare (45) and (46): (45) a Der Mann[arg1] hat es[about][arg2] der Frau[about][arg3] gegeben b Der Mann[arg1] hat der Frau[about][arg3] es[about][arg2] gegeben The Even Yearbook 12 (2016), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 2061–490X, http://seas3.elte.hu/even, © 2016, Tamás Csontos
Nominal and pronominal argument in German 27
c Es[about][arg2] hat der Mann[arg1] der Frau[about][arg3] gegeben d [arg1]PDA √nFDA (45a) (45b) *(!) (45c)
[about]PDpred [arg2]PDA [arg3]PDA *
(46) a Der Mann[arg1] hat ihr[about][arg3] das Baby[about][arg2] gegeben b Der Mann[arg1] hat das Baby[about][arg2] ihr[about][arg3] gegeben c
[arg1]PDA √nFDA [about]PDpred [arg2]PDA [arg3]PDA (46a) *
(46b) * (!) *
When the nominal object is not a topic (and thus lacks the [about] feature), both √nFDA and [about]PDpred would favour the pronoun > nominal object order. If the pronoun is used contrastively, as in (47), the higher ranked [contrast]PDpred constraint will have to be satisfied: (47) a Mich[about][contrast][arg2] hat der Mann[arg1] vorgestellt b Der Mann[arg1] hat mich[about][contrast][arg2] vorgestellt [contrast]PDpred [arg1]PDA √nFDA [about]PDpred [arg2]PDA c
(47a)
(47b)
Finally, let us take a look at an example where the focussed nominal subject must follow both the pronominal direct and indirect object. I repeat the relevant example below, as well as some other possible permutations: es[about][arg2] ihm[about][arg3] ja wahrscheinlich gestern (48) a weil because it him [particle] probably yesterday ein Mann[new][arg1] gab a man gave ‘because probably a man gave it to him yesterday’
b weil ein Mann[new][arg1] es[about][arg2] ihm[about][arg3] ja wahrscheinlich gestern gab c weil ja es[about][arg2] wahrscheinlich gestern ein Mann[new][arg1] ihm[about][arg3] gab
The Even Yearbook 12 (2016), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 2061–490X, http://seas3.elte.hu/even, © 2016, Tamás Csontos
Nominal and pronominal argument in German 28
d
[new]FDpred [arg1]PDA √nFDA [about]PDpred [arg2]PDA [arg3]PDA
(48a) (48b) (48c)
*(!)
(48) also demonstrates that pronouns do not always have to be used contrastively in order to appear at the leftmost edge of a clause.
4. Conclusion We have seen that there are a lot of factors which have an effect on German word order: argument status, animacy status, focus and topic status. The features [arg1,2,3], [new], [about], [contrast] and [animacy] play a crucial role in determining the arrangement of the relevant arguments. The notion of the predicate domain and the argument domain are also important, because most of the elements are aligned with respect to them. In the present article I claimed that the position of pronominal arguments, among others, depend on the fact that they are inherently associated with the [about] feature and they lack the animacy feature. References Cardinaletti, A. and Starke, M. (1996). Deficient pronouns: A view from Germanic. A study in the unified description of Germanic and Romance. In: Thráinsson, H., Epstein, S.D., Peter, S. (eds.). Studies in Comparative Germanic Syntax. Vol.2, Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer, pp- 21-65 Choi, Hye-Won. 1996. Optimizing structure in context: Scrambling and information structure. PhD dissertation. Stanford University. (Available at: http://roa.rutgers.edu) Csontos, Tamás. 2014. Personal and reflexive pronouns in English: a Syntax First Alignment approach. In: András Kertész (ed.).Argumentum 10. Debreceni Egyetemi Kiadó. Debrecen. (Available at: http://argumentum.unideb.hu) Frey, Werner. 2005. Pragmatic properties of certain German and English left peripheral constructions. Linguistics 43: 89-129. (Available at: http: www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/fileadmin/mitarbeiter/frey/PragmProperties.pdf) Harley, Heidi and Noyer, Rolf. 1999. State-of-the-Article: Distributed Morphology. In GLOT 4.4: 3-9. Hoberg, Ursula. 1981. Die Wortstellung in der geschriebenen deutschen Gegenwartssprache. München: Max Hueber Verlag. [Heutiges Deutsch. Linguistische Grundlagen. Forschungen des Instituts für deutsche Sprache The Even Yearbook 12 (2016), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 2061–490X, http://seas3.elte.hu/even, © 2016, Tamás Csontos
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10]. Jacobs, Joachim. 1988. Fokus-Hintergrund-Gliederung und Grammatik. In: Hans Altmann (ed.). Intonationsforschungen [Linguistische Arbeiten 200]. Tübingen: Niemeyer. 89-134. Lenerz, Jürgen. 1977. Zur Abfolge nominaler Satzglieder im Deutschen. Tübingen. TBL Verlag Gunter Narr. Lenerz, Jürgen. 1993. Zu Syntax und Semantik deutscher Personalpronomina. In: Marga Reis (ed.). Wortstellung und Informationsstruktur. Tübingen: Niemeyer. 117-152. Nagy, Gizella. Wh-questions in Syntax First Alignment. In: Péter Szigetvári (ed.). VLlxxx. Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. (Available at: http://seas3.elte.hu/tmp/vlfs/nagy.html) Newson, Mark.1998. Pronominalisation, reflexivity and the partial pronunciation of traces: Binding goes OT.. In: László Varga (ed.). The Even Yearbook 3. Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. (Available at: http://seas3.elte.hu/delg/publications/even/1998.html#nm.) Newson, Mark. 2004. Deforestation in syntax. In: László Varga (ed.). The Even Yearbook 6. Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. (Available at: http://seas3.elte.hu/delg/publications/even/2004.html#ne) Newson, Mark. 2010. Syntax First, Words After: A possible consequence of doing Alignment Syntax without a lexicon. In: László Varga (ed.). The Even Yearbook 9. Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. (Available at: http://seas3.elte.hu/delg/publications/even/2010.html#nm.)
Newson, Mark and Szécsényi, Krisztina. 2012. Dummy Auxiliaries and Late Vocabulary Insertion. In: László Varga (ed.). The Even Yearbook 10. Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. (Available at: http://seas3.elte.hu/delg/publications/even/2012.html#nm.) Newson, Mark. 2013. What you can do with a domain and why they are not phrases. In: Péter Szigetvári (ed.). VLlxxx. Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. (Available at: http://seas3.elte.hu/tmp/vlfs/newson.html) Niv, Michael. 1992. Right association revisited. Paper represented at the Thirtieth Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics. Newark. DE. Roreng, Anita. 2011. Die deutsche Doppelobjektkonstruktion. PhD Dissertation. Universitetet i Tromsø, (available at www.ub.uit.no/munin/bitstream/handle/10037/3377/thesis.pdf?...2) Webelhuth, Gert. 1992. Principles and Parameters of Syntactic Saturation. New York. NY. Oxford University Press. Zifonun, Gisela et al. 1997. Grammatik der deutschen Sprache. Berlin: de Gruyter. 3 Bde. The Even Yearbook 12 (2016), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 2061–490X, http://seas3.elte.hu/even, © 2016, Tamás Csontos
Nominal and pronominal argument in German 30 Tamás Csontos Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University csontostamas82@freemail.hu
The Even Yearbook 12 (2016), Department of English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest ISSN 2061–490X, http://seas3.elte.hu/even, © 2016, Tamás Csontos